History of the Sega Saturn

Development

Rumours of a successor to the Sega Mega Drive emerged as early as 1991, with the arrival and subsequent rise of Nintendo's Super Famicom in Japan. The Super Famicom, later to become the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES) in western markets, was considered by much of the press to be the superior machine from a technical standpoint, prompting suggestions that Sega may have attempted to leapfrog its competition at the earliest possible opportunity.

The industry was still relatively young and the concept of a console "cycle" had not yet fully been explored, and the arrival of the Sega Mega-CD put the question of a successor to bed for several months. However, in 1993 the situation was different - threats of the Atari Jaguar, CD-i and 3DO were putting strain on the Mega Drive's 16-bit image in the West, and in Japan, the system simply had not taken off, and so, talk of brand a new console began to make the headlines - "project Saturn".

Pre-announcement

A 27-member group of Sega staff began development of the "Saturn" project - a CD-based gaming system to carry the company forward. The team was composed of Sega employees from a wide range of specialties, including hardware engineering, product development, and marketing, and was headed by Hideki Sato, who had also been responsible for designing Sega's prior "main" consoles. The team worked roughly two years on the project exclusively, in an attempt to get the console to launch with the some of the world's best hardware and software of the era.

Throughout much of 1993, nobody knew what project Saturn entailed, though from the start it seemed likely that the successor to the Mega Drive would be a "32-bit" or "64-bit" system utilising a CD-ROM drive and possibly offering a cartridge option (though no Mega Drive backwards compatibility). It was often difficult to envision the future - Virtua Racing and later Virtua Fighter gave clues about what 3D gaming from Sega could look like, but expectations were raised when Namco demonstrated its texture-mapped arcade racing game, Ridge Racer at the Amusement Machine Show 1993.

Sega of America began talking openly of 32-bit systems in the Summer of 1993, with Tom Kalinske outlining Sega's existing track history of 32-bit arcade machines amd claiming the company could release a machine "tommorow" if they wanted. However, the major hurdle was price - Kalinske did not want to market a machine that would cost over $500, and hardware prices were not set to drop to acceptable levels in 1993 (or 1994).

EGM reported that this new Saturn project was likely to use a Motorola 68030 processor. It also became increasingly unlikely that this new project would not be compatible with Mega Drive or Mega-CD software.

More information was leaked shortly afterwards, suggesting the Saturn was a 32-bit machine running on a single NEC V60-esque processor clocked at 27MHz. A palette of 16 million colours, an alpha channel for sprites and the capability of displaying 16,000 polygons on screen at once were suggested, and an asking price was calculated at around the $400 USD mark.

On September 21st, 1993, Sega announced a joint venture with Hitachi with the intention of producing a "32-bit" video game multimedia machine, the idea being that Hitachi would be responsble for producing the processor. Mega Drive and Mega-CD support was effectively ruled out around this point - it was unlikely that Sega would equip its new console with all the chips required to run this software natively, and more modern techniques such as software emulation was completely unheard of at the time.

By February 1994, talk of the Saturn was well under way, with developers supposedly receving extremely early hardware reported to be vastly superior to the Amiga CD32, Atari Jaguar and 3DO, as well as Virtua Racing. It was thought to be more in-line with Sega's Daytona project (the corporation's answer to Ridge Racer), though these comparisons with Sega Model 2 hardware were often generous to the Saturn. Furthermore, Virtua Racing actually has a higher polygon count than Daytona, but because the polygons are not texture-mapped (which, incidentally was technology provided by Lockheed Martin, not Sega), the game looks less "realistic".

Edge magazine issue #5 states that the Saturn had a SH7032 CPU RISC chip running at 27MHz as its main processor, 3MB of RAM (which suggests a lack of VDP2 chip), "32 audio channels" (with support for PCM and FM) and a release date of November 1994. Electronic Gaming Monthly also suggested the Saturn was set to have a 64-bit graphics chip. The final model opts for two SH-2 processors, with the SH-1 reduced to controlling the CD-ROM drive.

Coincidentally, Sony's "PlayStation X" or "PS-X" project was in a similar situation to the Saturn, though most commentators, including Sega, suggested the PS-X would be the more powerful system. Most notably, Namco pledged their allegiance to the hardware early on, with the aim of bringing Ridge Racer to this new home platform relatively unscathed.

Concepts

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US Opinion

Tom Kalinske was reportedly never impressed by the plans for Saturn hardware, but Sega of Japan refused to give the American branch of Sega much say in regards to the console's development. Kalinske did not see the Saturn as a console that could sell in the region in its current form - it was not engineered in such a way that would appease Western developers, and he was fearful that the competition would eat into Sega's market share relatively quickly (at numerous points in the first half of the 1990s, the Mega Drive (or Genesis) was the best selling home video game console in North America).

Silicon Graphics

Kalinske even went so far at one stage to source out an alternative graphics chip, approaching James H. Clark of Silicon Graphics (SGI), who, along with the recently acquired MIPS Computer Systems, were working together to create a low-cost real-time 3D graphics system. Negotaions fell through - though Sega of America were positive about the project, Sega of Japan were not keen, with the company collectively evaluating an early prototype as having several unresolved hardware-issues and deficiencies which made the project too risky. Sega would have also demanded exclusive rights to the upcoming chip, while SGI wanted to license the technology to other vendors.

The Silicon Graphics deal is controversial, not least because it was picked up by Nintendo for use in the Nintendo 64 in the Summer of 1993.

Sony Deal

Having been more-or-less rejected by Nintendo, Sony Electronic Publishing turned to Sega of America for help get into the console race. The PlayStation project (or what would become the PlayStation) was not thought highly of by Sony executives in Japan (a view which would not change until E3 1995), and Sega of America, reportedly impressed by the PlayStation project were keen to get Sony on board to create a Sony-Sega console. Japan once again rejected the idea based on Sony's perceived inexperience, however Sony Imagesoft, along with Sega of America would work with Digital Pictures to test out CD-based game development prior to the deal's collapse.

Inevitably Sony would hire Steve Race who was working under Tom Kalinske at the time and challenge Sega head-on at E3 1995.

Akitoshi Oikawa patent

Akitoshi Oikawa of Sega filed a patent (number USD362869 S) of what is presumed to be a cartridge-less Saturn console in early 1994:

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Winter CES 1994

First public viewings of Project Saturn emerged at Winter CES 1994, held in January, but it was not the focus of Sega's efforts, being shown extremely briefly on a marketing loop with many Mega Drive and Mega-CD titles. No details of the hardware were mentioned, just a rolling demo of five potential Saturn games - Virtua Fighters and Daytona GP (using arcade footage) and three early tech demos - Virtua Soccer, "action game" (Clockwork Knight) and "3D shooting game" (Panzer Dragoon).

The console itself resembled something very similar to the final product, but was partially obscured by darkness and not rendered in full colour. It may not have even been a physical product at this stage, just a glorified piece of concept art.

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Jupiter and Mars

Alongside project Saturn, Sega were working on a project Jupiter - a cartridge-based 32-bit system. The main difference between the two was a CD-ROM drive - at one point, the Saturn set to be able to run cartridge as well as disc-based software, with the cartridge port later being downgraded into a feature which would "assist" games. The Jupiter project was essentially a Saturn without a CD-ROM drive, but could have been upgraded at a later stage to create a makeshift Saturn console.

By February 1994 the Jupiter had been publically axed and in its place, the ill-concieved "project Mars", headed by Sega of America. Seemingly unaware of the upcoming Saturn hardware, the project, later known as the Sega 32X, set itself the task of extending the Mega Drive's lifespan, first as a true successor to the system, then as a hold-over to the Saturn. As a result, many early Sega "32-bit" projects have a confused development history - some were converted into Saturn games, others were mislabeled as Saturn software, and many projects were never completed.

Like the Saturn, the 32X saw its own share of bodged upgrades, having originally been envisioned as little more than a colour palette boost for the aging Mega Drive. It aquired two SH-2 32-bit processors, identical to those of the Saturn (albeit clocked at a lower rate) leading to misreported claims of Saturn compatibility. The Saturn had a cartridge slot, the 32X used cartridges, and in Japan these two Sega-produced "32-bit" systems were released within a month of each other - compatibility seemed obvious, and yet there was none.

The 32X created a great deal of customer divide - it was an expensive and cumbersome unit, and was discontinued in less than two years, damaging both consumer confidence and future Saturn sales. While the add-on is not thought to have influenced the Saturn's design, it cultivated scepticism among the press and consumers - maintaining two systems was untennable, and if faced with pressure from its rivals, it was widely feared Sega might pull a similar stunt in a year or two's time.

Consumer Group Show Spring 1994

March 1994 is where Japanese consumers could "see" a real Sega Saturn. A handful of hardware photos and a logo were sent to the press, while TBS Television aired footage of the Saturn at Sega's R&D labs. Hayao Nakayama had the honor of revealing the system to the world, though as it transpires, the Saturn on display was merely a painted shell constructed out of wood.

Nevertheless, footage showed prototype Saturn hardware running Virtua Fighter.

The Saturn model on display was much like the final Japanese HST-0001 console, spare for one key difference - it was silver as opposed to grey. Also printed on the unit was the text "High Performance CD-ROM/Cartridge Entertainment System", suggesting that cartridge-based software was still being considered at this stage.

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Tokyo Toy Show 1994

The Toyko Toy Show 1994, held on the 2nd of June 1994, finally let people use the console. Though mostly complete in design, the Saturn hardware had yet to be condensed into its final form, and while a Saturn console was put on display, this consisted solely of a plastic shell. Alongside the Saturn, prototype control pads and Virtua Sticks were put on display, with both undergoing cosmetic changes before release.

The event featured a number of early Saturn games, although with the exception of a 30% complete build of Virtua Fighter, most were said to be unplayable. Technical demos featuring content from what would emerge as Daytona USA were featured, and Victory Goal and Clockwork Knight also showed up in some form. Many games were announced, but much of the attention went to Sony's PlayStation, now in its near-final incarnation.

EGM² reported that the Saturn was due to retail at ¥49,800 or less, would have two SH-2 32-bit RISC CPUs, have a Motorola 68000 chip driving the sound and could handle 16.77 million colours. Flat shading, gourard shading and texture mapping were all set for 3D models, and scaling, warping and rotation were set for sprites. Five layers of scrolling were available for 2D graphics, and 32-channel PCM and 8-channel FM audio were available. These figures suggest that the hardware was roughly the same as the final Saturn model, though with some figures missing, there is the possibility of slight differences. The final cost of the Saturn in Japan was ¥44,800, reduced primarily to compete with the PlayStation.

This Saturn is very similar to the previous one but now has its final logo, even if the shell is still silver.

It is also notable that the Saturn's launch was deliberately delayed around this period for Western markets - a strategy ensuring the console would have more software at launch, as in both the Saturn and PlayStation's case, third-party support had yet to pick up.

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Final Design

Towards the end of 1994, having spent much of the year focusing on the 32X instead of the Saturn, Sega of Japan announced a final tweak to the console's aesthetics, claiming their new grey model was more universal than the silver of before (though it is thought that in reality, the silver scratched too easily). It was at this point where the deals with Hitachi and JVC came in, with the concept of manufacturers making their own Saturns, similar to the plans of the now struggling 3DO console.

Hitachi also owned their own retail outlets at the time, so it was an excuse to get the Saturn onto more store shelves in Japan.

At the second CSG show of the year, the Saturn's release date was finalised for the 22nd of November - eight days before the previously announced PlayStation date.

Release

Japan

The Saturn's second Virtua Stick received much praise from fighting game enthusiasts.

Having been designed in Japan for a predominantly Japanese audience, it is perhaps no surprise that the Sega Saturn would do well in the territory. It is thought that roughly 500,000 consoles were ready to be sold on launch day (1994-11-22), but Sega specifically held back on 300,000 in storage for a week, in an attempt to catch a fledgling PlayStation off guard. Sony shipped around 100,000 consoles to Japanese retailers for its launch on December the 3rd - Sega sold at least 170,000 Saturns in its first day of sale - its most successful console launch of all time.

Very few games were available when the Saturn launched — Sega's Virtua Fighter (packed-in with the system), Sega/Micronet's WanChai Connection, Electronic Arts Victor's Mahjong Goku Tenjiku, Sunsoft's port of Myst, and Time Warner Interactive's Tama. Some elements to the Saturn's early praise were down to experience - initial PlayStation controllers had short leads, while a Saturn one was 7ft. Pre-orders had effectively sold out two weeks in advance (having only been available for a month), and queues for the system were several hours long, and so staff dressed as Sega's "coneheads" (characters seen in early Saturn advertising) had been brought in to keep order.

JVC's V-Saturn was also made available, but was considerably harder to find. Ten Saturns were reported as defective, having apparently caught fire.

By the end of Christmas 1994, 500,000 Saturns had been sold (including 50,000 V-Saturns) versus the 300,000 of the PlayStation, topping the market over the period. Sega were planning to triple that figure by Christmas 1995 at 1.5 million units, with an additional 180,000 V-Saturns in play. As supply struggled to keep with demand, expectations were then raised, with a planned 1.2 million units to be sold by May 1995 and 2 million by the end of the year. Both Sega and Sony were claiming around 600,000 of their consoles had been sold by March 1995.

While the Sega 32X had the potential to do damage to the Saturn brand, in Japan the Mega Drive add-on was dismissed out of hand, and was killed within the year. Furthermore virtually all Mega Drive and Mega-CD game production ended on the Saturn's launch - while games continued to show until early 1996, it was clear the older console was being sidelined.

One million units had been sold in the territory by mid-1995, and to celebrate, June 16th saw the price of a Saturn drop to ¥34,800, packaged with Virtua Fighter Remix. Sony were able to slowly catch up and overtake this figure, due in part to lower licensing fees and a 7-10 day lead time versus the 10-12 weeks experienced in the days of cartridges. However, the Saturn again outsold its competitors during Christmas 1995, thanks in part to the so called "big three"; Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally Championship and Virtua Cop. Sega felt that about 50% more Saturns were being sold than PlayStations during the first half of 1996, and a further Spring price drop cemented this point further.

Sega's market share in Japan rose from 12% in 1994 to 32% in 1995, with Nintendo dropping drastically from 75% to 33%.

By early 1996, roughly 2.2 million Saturns had been sold in Japan - more than half the then-worldwide total of about 4 million consoles.

On March 22nd, 1996, Sega released a redesigned "white model" Saturn for an asking price of ¥20,000 - a move thought to have made the concept of 32-bit gaming (or the fifth generation of consoles as it is more commonly known today) more accessible to the Japanese public, and a figure less than half the price of the console at launch. The move meant the Saturn now cost less than the six-year-old Super Famicom (though Nintendo were offering software coupons and would knock the system down to ¥9,800 in August), and while not unique to the system, CD-based software was generally retailing for less than those on cartridge (Super Famicom games often selling for more than ¥10,000 in 1995, a pricing strategy continued with the Nintendo 64).

70,000 white Saturns were sold in four days, with supplies again struggling to keep with demand.

The Nintendo 64 landed in September of 1996, lacking the fanfare of the then-record Super Famicom launch and, in a surprise twist, generally failing to meet Japanese expectations, with sales reportedly dropping sharply after its first week in June 1996. Curiously figures suggest that the Saturn increased its market share over the period, with an estimated 500,000 - 1 million more Saturns sold than PlayStations overall.

By the end of 1996, the Saturn was able to maintain a marginal lead over the PlayStation in Japan. But by the beginning of 1997, the PlayStation took the lead in Japan. The major blow to the Saturn's fortunes came with the release of Final Fantasy VII in Janaury, which caused PlayStation numbers to skyrocket.

5 million Saturn consoles had been sold in Japan by early 1997.

The Saturn started faltering by the middle of 1997 when Sega's entire corporate structure seemingly went into meltdown, with frustrations in the US and a failed merger with Bandai making the news for the wrong reasons, and the ongoing trials and tribulations of the "Saturn 2" project - a console the Japanese didn't really need.

Part of the Saturn's continuing success was due to strong, inspiring adverts, featuring Segata Sanshiro, who would travel around Japan and punish those who did not play their Saturns. While Saturn systems were being outsold by PlayStation systems for much of its lifespan, Sega actually sold more software for the Saturn during 1995-1997. The result was that in Japan the Saturn became the platform of choice for more dedicated gamers while the PlayStation had an audience comprised of more casual customers who bought fewer titles.

It is thought that by Spring 1998, weekly sales of Nintendo 64 consoles were finally starting to overtake the Saturn, having trailed behind both the Saturn and PlayStation since launch. Total sales of the Nintendo 64 would never catch the Saturn before its demise, however.

In the end the vast majority of the Saturn's game library remained exclusive to Japanese customers. More than 80% of the console's 1000+ strong library did not leave the country.

All this considered, the Sega Saturn is widely regarded as the most popular Sega platform of all time in Japan, selling more than the also-popular Nintendo 64 (6 million vs. 5.54 million). The console was supported with software until 2000, almost two years after the Dreamcast launched in that region.

North America

With perceived weaknesses both inside and outside of Sega of America, the Saturn had a tough time outside of Japan. The press were intrigued, if not ecstatic about the console's arrival and many were questioning the long-term future of the 32X, which already seemed to be on its way out. Sega of America, however, suspected that the Saturn would be initially too expensive for the US mass market, so spent most of 1995 focusing on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) and its extensions instead.

The western Control Pad was redesgined to accomodate "bigger hands". It was later replaced with the Japanese model.

The Genesis had allowed Sega to become the dominant player in the so-called North American "console wars". It had beaten rival Nintendo during the Christmas period for three years in a row (1992, 1993 and 1994) and was predicting equally strong growth in 1995, holding about 55% of both the hardware and software market in the region at the time.

The Saturn launched in Japan before any firm release dates were given to other parts of the world. Sega of America had spent the preceeding year extolling the virtues of the Sega 32X, and while the US branch had openly discussed the existence of the Sega Saturn (to the point where it was likely undermining 32X sales), the tentative release date for the new console was late 1995. Even at the beginning of the year there was speculation that the console would ship early, possibly arriving as soon as March or April.

Eventually Sega of America announced the release date was to be 'Saturnday' on September 2, 1995 - delayed to ensure the console had games at launch. The Saturn was meant to ship with 20 titles at launch with an additional 100 titles by Christmas 1995, backed by a $50 million advertising campaign. Like the Mega Drive, there were also plans for test markets, some rolling out as early as the 11th of July.

But the plans were put in place before word reached of the PlayStation's earlier release date. Following Japanese worries at E3 1995, the Saturn was released four months ahead of the schedule - on the very day of Sega's E3 press conference. The timing was not great - not only did Sony turn around some hours later to annouce a lower price point ($299 vs. $399 (or $449 with Virtua Fighter), the early Saturn release surprised everybody - not just consumers and developers, but retailers too. This pricing move, along with much better marketing than that of Sega of America, wreaked havoc on the Saturn's place in the market and ultimately caused its downfall.

The American branch did not have enough stock or enough games to justifty the early launch - only Babbages, Electronics Boutique, Software Etc. and Toys 'R' Us were given supplies, so many retailers were left alienated (most notably Kay-Bee Toys, which refused to stock the Saturn from this point onwards). Sega prioritised these stores as console supplies were too low. It is also thought that retailers made no profit from the $399 figure, relying solely on software sales.

Third party developers had no time to get their games translated and out to market by launch, leading to a severe drought of games which plagued the system for its first year. The early launch was in a sense, meaningless, as few games launched on the Saturn ahead of their originally planned schedules, and many games which did see a release were considered by many to be under-par. It also meant that Sony would have more time to put some finishing touches on their PlayStation, draw up a well-planned strategy and learn from the pitfalls of the Saturn.

That being said, before the PlayStation could redefine what "success" was, early Saturn sales looked promising, to the point where it was rumoured that Sony would jump the gun on its release date too. The launch was limited to 60,000 Saturn units which likely sold out very quickly.

The PlayStation launched on the 9th of September, and the true situation for Sega quickly became apparent. The PlayStation's launch broke records, and both the software and hardware was highly praised by critics. Of particular note is the port of Namco's Ridge Racer which was technologically superior to Sega's Saturn release of Daytona USA, despite being the simpler of the two arcade releases. It gave rise to the impression that the Saturn was the weaker system, ill-equipped to deal with 3D gaming in comparison - the perceived future of the industry.

Sega forecasted that 600,000 Saturns would be sold in the US in 1995, but there were a number of factors causing headaches for the firm. For one, it is thought the Saturn cost roughly $380 to produce (versus the $300 or so for the PlayStation), and Sega had misjudged the public's enthusiasim over a $400 "next generation" console, many of whom were waiting to see how Sony would respond.

In the end, 80,000 Saturn units were sold in North America before the PlayStation, while the PlayStation amassed 100,000 unit sales just from pre-orders, with about 130,000 consoles sold within its first week.

A slight consolation prize from the PlayStation launch, however, was that Sony reportedly ran out of plastic cases for its games, having to buy some from Sega to fill the gap. This explains why in the US, the likes of Rayman and Battle Arena Toshinden originally shipped in Saturn-style "long boxes".

As was widely expected, the Saturn dropped to $299.99 on October 2nd, and a replacement bundle pack, now containing Virtua Fighter Remix was being sold for £349.99. Sega were using a 120,000 Saturns sold figure around this period, with Tom Kalinske claiming the PlayStation had sold less. Meanwhile Sony was claiming a 200,000 figure.

Even the 3DO is thought to have out-sold the Saturn in this initial four month period, it too being priced around $100 cheaper, and by the end of 1995 it was even worse - NPD data suggested the PlayStation was out-selling the Saturn 2:1 - 800,000 units versus 400,000 in the territory, Howard Lincoln of Nintendo put the Saturn figure between 120,000-200,000 (versus 500,000 PlayStations) and Ted Lennon of Fairfield Research put Saturn and PlayStation sales on 474,000 and 569,000, respectively.

There is very little way of telling exactly what the situation was in North America shortly afterwards - both Sony and Sega were reluctant to disclose official numbers and both were thought to be inflating the figures. Commentators suggested the PlayStation may have been out-selling the Saturn at a rate of 4:1, but it could have easily been as high as 6:1 or even 12:1.

Sega was no longer top of the Christmas charts, and as well as being beaten by rival 32-bit machines, a surprisingly strong comeback from the SNES meant that Nintendo sold more 16-bit consoles than the Saturn too. The figures are slightly misleading, however, as when 16-bit and handheld sales are included in the 1995 figures, Sega and Nintendo held roughly 40% of the market each, while Sony was closer to 15%.

It was in early 1996 when to counteract some of their losses, Sega pulled the plug on both the Sega Mega-CD and Sega Nomad, while shifting focus away from the 32X. The product line was effectively reduced to three; the Mega Drive (Genesis), the Game Gear and the Saturn, with the former expected to be discontinued within a couple of years. The Saturn's price was dropped to $249 in late March, having sold 500,000 units at this point. 3 million Saturn games had been sold around this period, versus 8 million PlayStation games.

The gap between the PlayStation and Saturn continued to wide and would never be closed. The press and public gradually became more disinterested in Sega's efforts, and eyes turned to the delayed Nintendo 64, thought now to be the only upcoming machine capable of challenging Sony's dominance.

Sega tried a marketing push with the NetLink in the following year - the first genuine attempt to marry a video game console with internet capabilities, but it too failed to catch on. At a combined cost of $499 it managed to undercut fledgling internet-led devices with as Apple and Bandai's Pippin console, and most desktop PCs. Behind the scenes a Sega Pluto console was being developed which would have had NetLink functionality built-in - it was never announced nor did it get past the prototype stage.

By May 1996, the Saturn was on 600,000 units versus the PlayStation's 1.2 million.

E3 1996 saw the PlayStation drop its price to $199.99, to which the Saturn was forced to follow, despite being more expensive to manufacture. This led to one of the classic E3 moments, in which after Sega started putting up signs across its booth, its marketing staff got into an altercation with Sony's on the show floor. Saturn sales went up as a result of the price drop, particularly as Nintendo did not move from their $249 launch price for the Nintendo 64.

Sega of America then began the process of an internal breakdown, with Tom Kalinske losing interest in fighting an ever more angry Japanese arm pulling the strings in the US. Kalinske resigned in July, followed by David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama. Sega of America began pushing more towards an educational and web-based market, and Sony extended its lead.

Saturn sales likely peaked with the launch of NiGHTS into Dreams, the most successful Saturn software launch up until that point.

In September, the Nintendo 64 launched putting more pressure on the Saturn, however in what was considered an act of desperation, the Saturn's fortunes turned with the announcement of the 3 Free Games deal, popular enough to warrant extensions past its holiday timeframe and keep the console firmly in the race for another few months. Sega also reduced the top price of its software from $69.99 to $59.99. Going into the Christmas period, 900,000 Saturns are thought to have been sold.

One noticable Saturn absentee was a product to capitalise on the 1996 NFL season, despite the history of Sega consoles playing host to popular sports titles. With no 32-bit version of Madden NFL 96, Sega found itself up against the highly praised PlayStation-exclusive NFL GameDay, which went on to sell 300,000 copies.

1996 ended with the Saturn on approximately 1.6 million console sales in the US (100,000 more than predicted), out-gunned by the Nintendo 64 which had shifted 1.7 million within three months, and half that of the PlayStation, which was estimated to have sold 3.2 million in the region. Alongside that 1.6 million figure, 5.5 million games had been sold, 2.7 million of those having come from Sega.

The three pack promotion had seen Saturn sales rise by 500%, with an estimated 400,000 consoles sold in the offer's first two weeks.

Console sales in general were up in the first quarter of 1997, and according to NPD figures, Saturn sales had risen by 135% compared to Q1 1996 (the caveat being that PlaySales had risen by 170%).

During the first three months of 1997 the Nintendo 64 pushed far ahead of the Saturn, hitting about 2.3 million units in March. This was countered by a PlayStation price cut to $149.95 in early 1997, though this time, Sega didn't match it (though Nintendo did some days later). On average the Saturn was selling about 77,000 consoles a month in the US, versus the 195,000 PlayStations and 383,000 Nintendo 64s, although demand for Nintendo's console would drop later in the year.

Meanwhile, talk about new consoles was engulfing Sega, awkwardly headded by new Sega of America CEO, Bernie Stolar, who openly talked down the Saturn at E3 1997, despite the console owning roughly 15% of the market at this time and sales seeing a year-on-year increase.

Two weeks before E3 1997, in June, the cheapest Saturn package was lowered to $149.99, with software capped at $49.99. With a pack-in the price was $169.99, and £249.99 for the NetLink set. At this point however, the company had only managed to move 1.7 million consoles in the US likely a contributing factor to third-party publishers pulling out of their upcoming Saturn projects.

By August, Sony controlled 47% of the "next generation" market, Nintendo 40% and Sega on 12%. Following continued sluggish sales, Sega cut ties with ten of its distributors, making up roughly 5% of its sales - the first suggestion that it was beginning to give up on the Saturn.

After another third place turnout during the Holiday season in 1997 a number of third party publishers started cancelling titles, as a result many games planned for a US Saturn release, including renowned titles such as Policenauts and Lunar The Silver Star Story. A chain reaction of cancellations rushed through the Saturn market transforming a seemingly promising 1998 schedule of North American releases to a small handful of titles.

After news broke out in early March 1998 about Sega abandoning the platform, retailers began to pull Saturn consoles off store shelves and Sega discontinued the Saturn TV advertising campaign, before cutting the system to $99.95. A last wave of first-party Saturn games including The House of the Dead (January), Panzer Dragoon Saga (April), Burning Rangers (May) and Shining Force III (July) appeared in the first half of 1998, but technical support aside, for all intents and purposes the console had expired by the Summer. Indeed, Sega had officially announced the Dreamcast in May, and attention was being rapidly shifted to the new "super console".

The Sega Saturn is estimated to have sold about 1.8-2 million units in the US overall.

Sega's flagship character and mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, never made a particularly major Saturn appearance - an enhanced Mega Drive port, a racing game and a compilation of his major Mega Drive adventures were made, but only the racing game was exclusive and it was hardly a major title. In fact, the one truly major title (Sonic X-treme) wound up being canceled.

Unfortunately, many of the games that made the Saturn so popular in Japan such as the Sakura Taisen series or many of the quirky anime style RPGs that sold well in Japan were never released elsewhere. Much of the reasoning behind this was due to policies put in place under by Bernie Stolar, who believed that RPGs were never to have great commercial success in North America.

One of the biggest contributions to the Saturn's failure was the distrust that gaming consumers had developed for Sega after a series of add-on peripherals to the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis in the US), the Mega-CD and 32X, which were discontinued around the same period as the Saturn's launch after only lukewarm support. While this had little bearing on the average consumer, likely unaware that these products existed, those in video game circles, particularly those who had invested in these consoles, were not keen on supporting a company with a track record of expensive, "awkward" systems that would be killed too early.

In development circles is is thought that a lot of misinformation was spread about the Sega Saturn's hardware, particularly when it came to polygon counts (which in itself is a difficult metric to calculate). Initial PlayStation specs inflated its figures, and on the console's box claims to be able to process "360,000 polygons per second". This was later revealed to concern flat shaded polygons - texture mapped polygons were cited to be around the 180,000 per second mark. The Saturn later claimed 500,000 and 200,000 for flat and texture-mapped polygons, respectively.

Fundementally these figures are inaccurate as they do not represent a typical game scenario. It is thought that the average Saturn developer was being able to render roughly 80,000-90,000 polygons in 3D games at a stable frame rate, however at one point Electronic Arts went on record with a 60,000 figure based on early releases such as Daytona USA. In reality, both consoles offer relatively similar results in performance, the PlayStation having an advantage when dealing with lighting and effects, and most crucially, an easier development process allowing programmers to access these features more quickly.

Nevertheless most US gaming and technology publications are thought to have presented a biased analysis of the Saturn thanks to figures like these. The Saturn was portrayed as a significantly weaker machine than Sony's (and later the Nintendo 64) and as word spread, likely altered the perception of Sega's console in the West significantly.

Europe

Success in Europe is difficult to quantify, as Sega's marketing and distribution channels varied considerably between the constituent countries of the continent. Unlike the Sega Mega Drive, however, Sega Europe had a handle of the four major European markets, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain from the outset. Giochi Preziosi continued with Italian distribution and the system was catered for in smaller countries too, but the Saturn marks a period where country-wide plans converged on a single "European" strategy.

The Sega Saturn was first shown in Europe at a side event to ECTS Spring 1995 in March, and launched across Sega's definition of Europe in early July 1995, a few months before the September launch of the PlayStation. For the United Kingdom and other countries, the launch took place on the 8th (a Saturday, or "Saturnday"), though others such as Germany and Spain saw their launch the day before on the 7th, presumably due to abnormal trading hours on weekends. While different strategies were applied across the continent, most took the UK's lead, which in turn was led in part by events happening in the US.

5,000 units were sold in the UK during its first week of sale, though there were (potentially fabricated) European-wide shortages at first, with an estimated 30,000 initially planned to ship across the region (20,000 of which were allocated to the UK). 10,000 Saturns had been sold in the UK within two weeks, with software moving at a higher rate than the 3DO.

European Saturn consoles came bundled with SCART cables as opposed to traditional RF units, and while Sega Europe had estimated that 80% of UK televisions had SCART connectors in 1995 (rising to 90% for predicted Saturn customers), many were forced to spend an extra £25 on an RF alternative, leading to a shortage here too. Nonetheless, the system continued to receive widespread support until Christmas 1996.

Sony's strategy in Europe was far different from all those which had come before, and were the first console platform holder to treat Europe as an equal partner (rather than the afterthought from companies such as Nintendo). As such, PlayStation adoption was high, and Sega were forced to openly adopt a "quality over quantity" approach as time went on.

In December 1995, Sony claimed to had sold 35,000 PlayStations versus 25,000 Saturns in the UK, making the 1995 totals at 130,000-135,000 and 80,000-100,000 for the PlayStation and Saturn, respectively.

Sony estimated roughly 160,000 PlayStations had been sold by May 1996 in the UK, versus the 70,000 Saturns, though both company's figures are disputable, with Sega Europe sometimes claiming victory on weekly sales, and others such as polling company Gallop suggesting weekly Saturn sales were narrowly behind Sony's console.

For three weeks in April, the Saturn sold for £249.99 - £50 less than the PlayStation. According to one "prominent Oxford Street retailer" (GAME? HMV?), roughly the same amount of Saturn software was being sold as for the PlayStation at this point.

Over the Summer the Saturn was reduced to £199.99 to match a price reduction on the PlayStation.

Both Sega and Sony benefited from a delayed Nintendo 64 release, not arriving in PAL regions until March 1997. This meant the two firms had a clean sweep over Christmas 1996 (where the PlayStation outsold the Saturn at an estimated 6:1), the period in which the redesigned "model 2" Saturn was launched. This helped mitigate some of the criticism of the console typically seen with North American commentators - Sega's relegation into third place occurred at a much later period, so was still seen as a viable platform for the first half of 1997.

No NetLink-style internet service was ever set up for the console in PAL regions, so for the most part the Saturn was advertised as a games machine as opposed to the low-cost internet multimedia device as seemed to be the case in the States. In the early days, however, focus was placed on the system's ability to play Video CDs through the Saturn's Video CD Card - a relatively new video format being tested in much of the continent at the time. Video CDs struggled to gain traction in Europe so the plan didn't pay off, but the situation was better than in North America, where the format was effectively a non-starter.

By mid-1997 the Saturn was suffering similar problems in Europe as in North America, forcing publishers like Eidos Interactive to reconsider their policies later in the year. In the UK the console was supported by the well written Sega Saturn Magazine until November 1998, and the trail of software ended with September 1998's Deep Fear.

In France, the Saturn was initially priced at 3,000F, before dropping to 2,100F (2,590F if bundled with Daytona USA) at some point in 1995. Shortly into 1996 it was dropped again to 1,990F, then 1,490F after E3 1996. In early 1996 about 60,000 Saturn units had been sold in France versus 160,000 PlayStations.

Germany's Saturns were initially priced at 699,-DM, or 749,-DM with Virtua Fighter. 10,000 units had been sold by at least September 1995. On 10th October, a price cut to 649,-DM was announced. On 1st April, 1996, there was a big reduction to 499,-DM.

On 4th March 1997, an "action pack" bundle was launched in France with a Saturn console and controller, both Sega Rally and Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 and Sega Flash Vol. x for 1,590F. The same package was released in Germany at some point for 449,95DM.

In Spain the Saturn launched in July 1995, for 79,900 Pts (with Virtua Fighter), with Sega España aiming to sell 45,000 consoles before Christmas. Again was a series of price drops - to 69,000 Pts in late 1995 (with Virtua Fighter substituted for Daytona USA), to 59,900 Pts in early 1996 and to 39,900 Pts on May 22nd.

Portugal saw Saturns sold for 29,990$ in late 1996.

Australia

Prior to Sega's announcement at E3 1995, Australia were set to receive the Sega Saturn considerably earlier than the rest of the Western world, as a "soft launch" set to arrive "no later than July" at $699 AUD. In the end, however, it launched at $799.95 - still slightly before Europe as a pseudo "test market", but generally seen as too expensive to effectively combat the PlayStation (a situation not helped by Sega Ozisoft's decision to spend very little on marketing the product).

In early 1996 the Saturn's price was dropped to $695 (with Daytona USA) to match a recent PlayStation price cut, then on 17th May 1996 the price was dropped to $499 (on the same day the PlayStation dropped to $399).

As with most consoles of the period, success in Austrlia was predicated on success in Europe, as much of the stock was imported.

Brazil

Brazil got Saturns of many colours. North America and Europe just had the one - black.

Like previous consoles, the Sega Saturn was distributed by Tectoy, and eventually adopted many of the colour schemes set out by Sega of Japan. Though not a commercial failure fewer Saturn games were released than Master System or Mega Drive games, with a vast number being US imports.

South Korea

The Saturn was also released in South Korea by Samsung as the SamsungSaturn (삼성새턴). It is rumoured that there are at least two revisions of the console - original models had a faulty reset button which did not function.

Asia

Much like previous consoles, the Saturn had a patchy release across Asia, seeing a release in nations such as Thailand and Hong Kong. A special Saturn with VCD support was released in this "region".

Decline

In many ways the Saturn was on the back-foot from day one. While significant volumes of Virtua Fighter were sold during its first few months of sale in Japan, it was a game not without its criticism, with many citing the game's "glitchy polygons", possibly caused by a rushed development timeline but more likely a lack of understanding of how to effectively render 3D graphics on the hardware.

It is a common misconception that the Sega Saturn was developed to be a 2D games machine. While it is certainly true that it handles 2D graphics better than much of its competition, every Sega game demonstrated on the hardware during its development - even in Japan where the 3D craze was not as significant - utilised real-time 3D graphics, and were pushed as selling points of the system. It was, however, very difficult for third-parties to meet expectations during its first six months of sale, leading to Sega AM2's Tadahiro Kawamura creating the Sega Graphics Library (SGL), under orders to ease arcade-to-Saturn conversions by Yu Suzuki.

By mid-1995 the old Sega Saturn Programming Boxes were replaced with cheaper CartDev units, and shipped to developers alongside an SGI Indy workstation, Softimage, SNASM2 and AM2's new SGL software. In a sense this meant that while Saturn development was technically feasible, prior to this date developers were forced to do a great deal of hardware research and library building of their own, slowing down game development considerably.

But despite all of these faults, worldwide Saturn sales were very strong up until the middle of 1996. By April of that year, mostly on the shoulders of Japan, the Saturn has been cited as owning 51% of the worldwide 32-bit console market. But the momentum was with Sony, and Sega quickly lost its commanding position over the summer.

After the holiday shopping season in 1996, the Saturn had fallen behind the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 in North America and Europe, prompting calls from Sega of America's senior management for a new platform. Analysts were predicting that only 4 million Saturn consoles would be sold globally (versus 10.9 N64s and 10.8 PlayStations), and production was slowed to 3 million units for 1997 versus the originally planned 4 million.

The idea was to get the jump on the next generation of systems ahead of their competitors, and so by E3 1997 Sega had already begun talk of the new system, code named Katana, which would eventually turn into the Sega Dreamcast.

As Sega started aggressively moving the Katana project forward it caused something of a rift between Sega and many third party developers. The Saturn was more than holding its own in the Japanese marketplace where the vast majority of Sega game development was based. As a result many Japanese developers saw little to no reason for Sega to rush another platform to the market, which would in the process, effectively kill the Saturn despite its large user base and many active development projects.

The Saturn would be discontinued in late 1998 for Europe, and April 3, 1999 in North America. Sega's history would damage the Dreamcast's reputation, with notable publishers such as Electronic Arts refusing to back the system, having made losses on the Saturn. It is widely considered that the Saturn was simply not up to the task of competing effectively in the fifth generation of video game consoles, being pushed aside like the Atari Jaguar, 3DO, CD-i and Sega's 32X as consumers judged their winner.

Estimates for the Saturn's worldwide console sales range from 9.5 million to 17 million - significantly less than both the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 (despite the latter arriving more than a year late). In Japan, the Saturn continues to stand as Sega's most successful console outing, outselling the Nintendo 64 by a considerable margin, and having an initial lead over the PlayStation. However, the PlayStation became the mass market machine of all regions of the world, trumping both the Saturn and Nintendo 64 and becoming the defining system of its generation.

Aftermath

Lessons

3D graphics

While strong in representing 2D video games, the Saturn is considered to be ill-equipped for the world of 3D gaming born in the mid-1990s. When it was designed, 3D games were still a novelty and texture-mapped polygons even rarer, however by 1997 3D was no longer the just the future, but very much the present. 2D gaming was seen as a thing of the past - something associated with "16-bit" consoles of the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo, not the $300+ 32-bit powerhouses. There was an expectation that platform holders would offer something truly new for the price, but the Saturn is not thought to have fully delivered on that promise.

While the Saturn frequently benefited from the experimental period of early 3D gaming (quadrilateral-based polygons (which the Saturn employed) were for a while, just as widely used as the triangle-based model of the PlayStation and later consoles (so in some cases, Saturn ports fared better than their PlayStation counterparts)), it was on the wrong side of the argument in many respects and ultimately failed to keep pace with technology. With the Dreamcast, Sega sided with graphics specialists and adopted more mainstream ideas and formats.

Untapped processing power

In mid 1995, Sega AM2 were demonstrating prototypes of Virtua Fighter 2 running at 704x480 at 60FPS, suggesting the capability was there to produce very competitive Saturn titles. However, AM2 were among the most skilled developers within the organisation and were very familiar with the hardware - third-parties rarely matched these statistics, and were unable to utilise the hardware fully.

The design of the Saturn was complex compared to the PlayStation, with various different processors (Sega of America claimed there were three, though you could argue there were as many as nine) all being used in tandem. AM2 wrote and released various development libraries to assist in Saturn development, but for months these were considered inadequate, and with many multi-processor setups, you could never achieve maximum efficiency when resources were being shared.

The Saturn was the last mainstream video game console to favour assembly language over higher level programming languages such as C (which was an option for developers, but the drops in performance made it unsuitable for demanding software). While there were many holdover specialists from the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo days, it was significantly harder and more time consuming to build a Saturn executable.

As a result, most multi-platform games 3D fare worse than their PlayStation counterparts. Simplified development tools were a priority for the Dreamcast, and the addition of Windows CE theoretically allowed Windows programmers to easily adapt to the console.

Legacy

Though the Sega Saturn is not amongst the most fondly remembered video game consoles, it is still considered noteworthy. The 3D Control Pad set the standard for analogue control pads going forward, introducing the concept of analogue shoulder triggers and a thumbstick on the left hand side of the controller (something continued with the Dreamcast and later the Xbox line). Its six face buttons also made its controllers ideal for fighting games.